A FORMER security officer on Manus Island has broken down describing the asylum seekers he helped treat after the riots at the detention centre, while warning detainees would be in “danger” of greater violence if released into the community.

Steve Kilburn, who resigned from security firm G4S days after the deadly incidents at the PNG facility in February, has told a Senate Committee hearing into February’s events there is an almost “unmanageable situation up there”.

Choosing to speak out about the experience despite legal advice and fears of “severe consequences” for his family, Mr Kilburn explained how “bubbling tensions” were building not only between asylum seekers and locals, but also PNG authorities and expat guards.

Locals were angered detainees were receiving better meals than them and were “destroying their island” given the reliance on disposable items in the centre, he said, adding there was also “very strong” religious undertones.

It was “inevitable” the “powder keg of tension” would boil over the former G4S worker believed, describing a meeting with the Department of Immigration as the “obvious trigger”.

“They were told basically that this can go on forever, there’s not necessarily going to be a quick resolution and the answers that they got there obviously were just the trigger that said ‘we can’t take this anymore’,” he said.

Mr Kilburn described the actions of local guards as “ridiculously heavy handed” on the evening of February 16, explaining how detainees were bashed trying to get back inside the centre.

He recalled how asylum seekers were taunting PNG police over the fence, and vice versa on the following night, before he took some to a nearby sports field for their safety.

There was a such a high level of tension that people were freaking out at the slightest movements, he said.

“What really started it I believe … is when the power went off.”

Tragedy ... asylum seekers walk around the detention centre in the aftermath of the fatal riots.Source:News Corp Australia

The ex-guard claimed some of the problem related to the tension is the centre’s identity is not yet defined — is it a jail or detention facility.

One compound was “appalling” he said, describing how 160 people were sleeping inches away from each other with no privacy in conditions akin to an “oven”.

Former colleagues have told him “some things have improved”, with greater freedoms given to asylum seekers to move around inside the compound.

“But the tension, from what people have told me, is at least as bad if not worse and people have said to me that this place is going to blow again for sure,” he said.

Locals have told him they “won’t let” asylum seekers be released into the PNG community.

“We knew this was going to end in violence, I’m telling you what is going to end in even worse violence is when they try and impose those people into the local community,” he warned, arguing unless there is a “massive pay-off” they’d be in danger.

Violence erupts ... former Manus guard Steve Kilburn describes the conditions at the centre as “appalling”.Source:ABC

Mr Kilburn decided to speak out on behalf of injured asylum seekers who were so badly beaten they could not speak or eat, had to lie on blood covered mattresses with no sheets and were so traumatised they soiled themselves.

During his time on the island local officers were affected by betel nut, which was prohibited, and would come to work with red mouths, he claimed.

The former worker also explained how he allegedly witnessed the attempted sexual assault of a young female PNG guard, who was on duty, by a drunk local defence force member.

His evidence follows the release of an independent report by Robert Cornall earlier this month, into the riots in which Iranian detainee Reza Berati was killed, allegedly by a local Salvation Army worker.

Humanitarian Mission Services CEO Sharon Callister expressed the organisation’s condolences to Mr Berati’s family but said the ex-employee, referred to as AB, who is facing accusations “maintains his innocence and has not presently been charged by the PNG authorities”.

The Salvation Army has never been approached by the country’s authorities, she told the Senate hearing, but it remains “ready, willing and able to be of assistance”.

She praised a large number of employees who “bravely and voluntarily assisted in the treatment of injured asylum seekers”, describing their actions as showing “remarkable fortitude” above the “call of duty”.

Ms Callister said they are “greatly concerned” about how Mr Cornall’s review has been interpreted and how Immigration Minister Scott Morrison reported his findings.

She claimed the witness accounts relied upon weren’t tested for their “accuracy or veracity”.

“We were not aware until the 18th of Feburary 2014 of the alleged involvement of any local PNG Salvation Army employee in the events which took place on the 17th of February 2014,” she added.

“The Salvation Army condemns any such behaviour and to the extent that any criminal actions as alleged are ultimately found by the PNG authorities to have occurred they were not done with any knowledge or authority of the Salvation Army.”